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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Israel’s New Problem With The Arab Street

By David Ignatius

The
expanding confrontation between Israel and its neighbors has been described
variously as a “train wreck,” a “lose-lose situation” and a “political
tsunami.” It’s all those things and likely to get worse, for there’s no quick
fix by Israel’s ally, the United States.

The
Obama administration has been seeking diplomatic solutions to the two most
incendiary issues — the demand by Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, for an Israeli apology for the Gaza flotilla incident of May 2010, and
the Palestinian plan to ask the United Nations to declare statehood. Despite
feverish American efforts to defuse these bombs, they’re still ticking away.

Welcome
to the Arab Spring, ­Arab-Israeli chapter. Commentators sometimes talked as if
the Facebook revolutionaries had forgotten about the Palestinian issue. Not so:
The “dignity revolution” is connecting, as in last week’s frightening riot at
the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, with the ever-flowing font of Arab shame and rage
toward the Jewish state. Bidding for regional leadership is Erdogan, who
thundered Monday, “Israel cannot play with our dignity.”

The
first instinct for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, feeling
beleaguered and friendless, has been to hunker down and say no. Nobody ever
wants to give ground under pressure, but Netanyahu’s approach, while
understandable, is a mistake. These are problems that Israel is going to have
to answer more creatively.

When
you strip away the posturing on all sides, what’s happening is that Israel now
lives in an Arab neighborhood where public opinion matters. For decades,
Israelis have dismissed the “Arab street,” as if presidents and kings were the
only decisive voices. That approach worked so long as dictators could suppress
popular opinion, but no more.

Let’s
start with Erdogan’s demand for an apology. As a populist politician, he is
channeling Turkish anger about the death of nine Turks aboard a ship in
international waters. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton worked through
the summer to craft a formula in which Netanyahu would apologize for
“operational mistakes” without conceding Israel’s right to maintain its
blockade of Gaza. As part of the deal, Turkey would promise not to make legal
trouble for Israel.

A
deal seemed tantalizingly close after many Clinton calls to Netanyahu.
President Obama leaned on Erdogan, with whom he had developed some trust after
a heated meeting in June 2010 in Toronto. Preserving the Turkish-Israeli
relationship was so important strategically, argued U.S. officials, that
Netanyahu should eat a little crow.

But
Netanyahu decided no. He is said to have countered that if Israel started
apologizing to Turkey, it would be pushed “to apologize everywhere for
everything.” Better just to refuse. A furious Erdogan responded with the
promised reprisals — including expelling the Israeli ambassador. And he set off
this week on a campaign-style tour of the Arab world; Monday in Cairo, he
denounced Israel as “the West’s spoiled child.”

As
bad as the Turkey feud is for Israel, the looming showdown at the United
Nations may be worse. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, frustrated by the
U.S. inability to budge Netanyahu and create a Palestinian state, plans to ask
the United Nations to declare statehood outright. This might seem a symbolic
move, not worth all the angst, except that as a “state,” Palestine might be
able to assert air rights, navigation rights and the like.

Israel
has hoped that Washington could make it all go away — by coaxing the
Palestinians back to negotiations and muffling the U.N. show. That disappearing
act might have been possible a few years ago, but not now, under the glare of
Arab public opinion.

Here’s
what U.S. officials expect: The Palestinians will lodge their statehood request
with the Security Council. America’s best hope (for which it is frantically
lobbying votes) is that the council will delay action — allowing the United
States to avoid a veto. An American veto, while rescuing Israel, would poison
U.S. relations with the Arabs at the precise moment Obama wants to show a new
American face.

If
the United States deflects a showdown in the Security Council, the statehood
issue will then move to the General Assembly, where adoption is all but
certain. The United States and close allies will vote against it, but the real
effort is crafting a resolution that limits the most damaging statehood
provisions. American diplomats probably would be relieved at that outcome.

Here’s
my bottom line on the collision of the new Arab Spring and the old animosities:
Israelis may ultimately be more secure in a world of Arab democracies. But it
will be a world where compromise is part of survival.

About Me

I graduated from the French University in Beirut (St Joseph) specialising in Political and Economic Sciences. I started my working life in 1973 as a reporter and journalist for the pan-Arab magazine “Al-Hawadess” in Lebanon later becoming its Washington, D.C. correspondent. I subsequently moved to London in 1979 joining “Al-Majallah” magazine as its Deputy Managing Editor. In 1984 joined “Assayad” magazine in London initially as its Managing Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief. Following this, in 1990 I joined “Al-Wasat” magazine (part of the Dar-Al-Hayat Group) in London as a Managing Editor. In 2011 I became the Editor-In-Chief of Miraat el-Khaleej (Gulf Mirror). In July 2012 I became the Chairman of The Board of Asswak Al-Arab Publishing Ltd in UK and the Editor In Chief of its first Publication "Asswak Al-Arab" Magazine (Arab Markets Magazine) (www.asswak-alarab.com).

I have already authored five books. The first “The Tears of the Horizon” is a love story. The second “The Winter of Discontent in The Gulf” (1991) focuses on the first Gulf war sparked by Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. His third book is entitled “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From Balfour Promise to Bush Declaration: The Complications and the Road to a Lasting Peace” (March 2008). The fourth book is titled “How Iran Plans to Fight America and Dominate the Middle East” (October 2008) And the fifth and the most recent is titled "JIHAD'S NEW HEARTLANDS: Why The West Has Failed To Contain Islamic Fundamentalism" (May 2011).

Furthermore, I wrote the memoirs of national security advisor to US President Ronald Reagan, Mr Robert McFarlane, serializing them in “Al-Wasat” magazine over 14 episodes in 1992.

Over the years, I have interviewed and met several world leaders such as American President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Margaret Thacher, Late King Hassan II of Morocco, Late King Hussein of Jordan,Tunisian President Zein El-Abedine Bin Ali, Lybian Leader Moammar Al-Quadhafi,President Amine Gemayel of Lebanon,late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, Late Palestinian Chairman Yasser Arafat, Haitian President Jean Claude Duvalier, Late United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan,Algerian President Shazli Bin Jdid, Jamaican Prime Minister Edward Siyagha and more...